Various~

It’s been about a month since my last post, huh? o.o Well, honestly, I had the same problem that hits me every now and then if I don’t post for a bit–I had no idea what I wanted to write about. (I still don’t, but… Lol) I guess that’s also partially because I write about various things here–life, Japanese, events, etc.–but since that’s all so general, at times I’m not sure if posting what I’d like to on a given day would be too much (because it would likely be the same sort of subject for a while)…

This post, then, will be a hodgepodge of various things that have taken place over the last month! I’ll try to make my next post more interesting!!

01. Manga Mission

The GoFundMe page for this project is now live! The Darkest Wand manga will be even more amazing with your help! “Art-lover” rewards coming soon. (Edit 8/24/15- project on hold until Spring 2016.)

I’m in the stage of working with the characters (design, etc.) and scenes. It may not seem like it at first, but there really is a lot of stuff to go through! It’s fun though ^o^ I’m excited to see it all begin to take shape~

02. Part-Time Sandwich … Slaying?

My part-time job is going…well, I suppose. I appreciate the lessons I’m learning and the struggles and hurdles I have had to overcome (and/or cry through…) because of it. It has definitely taught me the importance of acting now rather than later, of better organizing my time, of what I really want to put my efforts towards…and more.

I started out listening to Japanese podcasts during work for the first week I was on my own (after the training finished), but while I enjoyed it, I realized that I move faster if I’m working in silence–just like how it’s more difficult for me to write (stories, etc.) if I’m listening to music or if someone is making noise near me–so I decided to work in silence. I try to move as fast as I can to get as much done before whoever is coming to open the store that day arrives and turns on the music. Listening to music while working completely removes all sense of time from me…

Anyway, changes will be made to the sandwich lineup and that should make it a little easier to keep my time such that I can leave earlier and not have to be concerned about the music slowing me down lol.

03. Library Card GET!

I finally got a library card! We’ve lived here for about five years and, shockingly, Mama and I had not yet gone to the local library to get library cards. Mama says that typically, whenever she moved to a new city, the library would be one of her first stops, but for some reason, this time was the exception. XD In any case, I checked out a couple of art/artist-related books and have since renewed them because I am absorbing their content *p* Reading them has really been beneficial as well; I’ve been taking lots of notes!

04. SAI ON MAC! SAI ON MAC! *flails excitedly*

After a while, thanks to a kind friend with amazing IT skills, and VirtualBox, I now have SAI on my Mac! WITH pen pressure! It’s really lovely!!! I hope I’ll be able to do Livestreams again after this! I’ll have to do some checking to make sure first, of course… ouo

05. Quest of Order

Today I did a bit of reorganizing in my room, because for one, I felt like it (lol), and two, I wanted to change what was being emphasized in the different areas. For example, the part of my desk that my iMac sits on–under the raised shelf is a space for storage, which I’ve been using mainly to hold things related to Japanese learning. Today I switched up those things, so now, my art, as well as the manga project, are the two things that are emphasized. I have inspirational books there instead of the J-E/E-J Dictionary I had there before (and wasn’t using).

I also cleaned up some piles of things that were on my floor and put away business cards I’ve received in a place where they won’t get damaged or scattered.

06. Japanese Level Up World CLEAR!

Just the other day, I entered the last of the first 500 Japanese-English sentences in my Anki deck and began reviewing it! This was a huge accomplishment for me, because it’s marked progress, visible progress; and entering sentences has helped me get through Tae Kim’s Guide so much faster than when I was just trying to read it and “hopefully remember something”. I now have a much clearer understanding of the grammar when I input it to Anki, and am confident that I’ll get a lot out of the deck the more I review it!

As of today, I’m at 580 sentences, and I’m continuing to add, with a goal of around 40 per week at the least.

Recently, my dad was so kind to buy a bilingual Bible for me. ;___; It’s the NIV (1984) and the 新改訳, side by side on every page, with furigana! Normally I don’t like to have furigana everywhere, but they really do help when trying to read/look up kanji and words that you don’t know, especially from such a source as the Bible! And having the English side-by-side helps me to guess meanings without even looking anything up to begin with. ;v;

I definitely do read Japanese pretty slowly though. orz

I need to update my stats on the sidebar…. And add some more resources to my JLR (Japanese Learning Resources) page…

07. K~Y New Video Up!

It’s our first video in two years! It’s been in the works for several months, but I finally blocked out a couple of days for filming no matter what and it only took the rest of the week to finish the art, mix the video, and upload it~ The extras will be up soon (Story of K~Y, updated channel graphics, and upload to NicoNicoDouga).

View here: http://www.youtube.com/user/yukionstudios

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That’s it for now, I think! If you read all the way to the end, thank you so much! Please help yourself to your favorite cookie~~ *holds out big plate of cookies* <3

Now if only my desktop Windows PC would stop dropping the internet connection and let Dropbox sync, that would be wonderful, for I wish to go to sleep now. -_-zzz